It didn’t usually bother me that Luca was late because he’d always had a shit grasp of time, but it did bother me that he acted as if his time was more valuable than mine. He was usually the one setting the meeting times. The least he could do was be there when he expected himself to be. I chose not to bring it up. Our relationship was cordial at best. He was my brother, and I’d lay down my life for him, but as people, we didn’t often see eye to eye. We just saw the world through different lenses. Before my dad’s passing, I wouldn’t have even described us as friends, but ever since he took over the business and admitted to me that he needed my help to do it, we came around to the idea of at least pretending to like each other.
“How are things going at the border?” I asked, walking over and dropping down into one of the chocolate leather chairs on the other side of the desk.
“Better than ever. With Mol on the case, you wouldn’t guess it was the same operation that was running there a year ago.” He had a small smirk on his face, ever prideful of his wife.
“She’s a badass, I’ll give her that.”
Molly was Luca’s wife and the head of our drug-running operation. She came into the family by accident, having earned the wrath of my father, but Luca took an interest in her and groomed her to work for us. Eventually, Luca fell for her, and the rest was history.
“More than that.” He glanced at the picture he had on the desk of Molly and his kids and then looked back at me. “Anyway. How are things at the restaurant?”
Ever since my brother, Marco, got arrested and turned state’s witness with the broad he knocked up, Luca, my half-brother Gabriel, and I were working overtime keeping things afloat. It was good that we had Molly, and she knew how to carry her weight, but the load was weighing on all of us. Right before Marco left, he’d purchased a restaurant to run through and launder money, and it had, of course, fallen directly under the watch of the police after Marco got caught.
“I turned the burner off for now. The only thing being washed there right now is dishes.”
It was actually one of Marco’s better purchases. It was a busy place with a lot of traffic. It was easy to get stuff in and out without drawing attention, and no one there was interested in going to the police about anything, only getting their food and moving on. I had plans to continue our work there once things had simmered down, but it was too dangerous for now.
“Still, do a few drive-bys a day, huh?” Luca said. “Make sure things are operating smoothly, no traces left behind. You know the drill.”
I nodded. “Yeah. I can’t tomorrow, though. I have Alder’s funeral.” Alder Morietti was Ricky and Willow’s grandfather and a man I’d grown to respect in the time that Willow and I were dating. He passed away recently, which was bringing Willow home for the first time in almost six years.
“That’s right, that’s tomorrow isn’t it? I’ll have some flowers sent over.”
“Molly already did it,” I said, and Luca looked up at me with a smile. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. She’s great.”
“So, you’re gonna see Willow then?”
I nodded. “Probably. I mean, I anticipate we’ll cross paths at the funeral, but I don’t know how much interacting we’ll do. I doubt she wants to see me.”
“You probably should stay away from her anyway. She did turn her back on us.”
“That’s not what she did.”
“That is what she did.” Luca laced his hands together. “She told you to pick between us or her, and when you didn’t pick her, she dropped you like a bad habit.”
“Luca, I swear to god—”
Luca held up a hand. “Relax. I’m not gonna hurt her, and neither is anyone else. Even if she refuses to acknowledge everything we’ve done for her family, she’s still protected thanks to her dad. All I’m saying is you can’t be a part of the organization and then cut ties. That’s not how it works.”
“She wasn’t part of the organization.” I couldn’t quite figure out why I was so staunchly defending Willow when, at the end of the day, Luca was right. “She was only her father’s daughter. She didn’t have any choice over being involved, and as soon as she became a legal adult, she left. She hasn’t taken a cent from us since. There were no ties to cut.”
Luca held up his hands. “Fair enough. I’ll drop it.”
“Thanks.”
I was tempted by my shoulder angel to say something else. To apologize to Luca and make sure that he understood that, just like six years ago, when it was a choice between my family and Willow, there was no choice, but before I could get a word out, there was a knock at the office door.
“Come in!” Luca called.
The door opened, and Gabriel poked his head inside. “Hey. Uh, can I come in?”
Luca shrugged his shoulders. “That would be why I said to come in.’”
Gabriel took a deep breath and entered the office. Like always, he was dressed in a full suit, despite only being around the family house. It was a bad habit all the Varasso boys shared. One we’d inherited from our old man. He smiled at me, and I smiled back. As far as brothers go, he and I were the closest. Luca mirrored my mom’s resentment for him
as a result of my father’s infidelity, and Marco wasn’t awful to him, but he was simply closer to Luca. I was still pretty young at the time that he showed up, and my dad always told me that blood was blood, it didn’t matter the quantity. I didn’t see Gabriel as a half-brother. I saw him as my brother.
“Hey, Sandro,” he greeted. “Luca.”